Scroll through Lisa Flake’s Instagram page, and you might find it difficult to pinpoint the interior designer’s personal style. Her designs reflect her clients’ tastes. “I don’t think there is one signature look,” says Lisa. “But I do want things to be pretty and livable.” Open the front door of her Crestline home, and you will quickly become acquainted with her love for color.

“Oh, this is definitely my personal style,” says Lisa as pops of cobalt blue against crisp white greet us in a space that serves as the entrance, dining room, and living room. “I just love this front room,” says Lisa. “Most people wouldn’t want their dining room away from their kitchen, but it works for us and how we live and entertain.” A typical 50-by-150-foot Crestline lot forced the Flake’s architect, Ed Bailey, to get creative when drawing the plans for their home 18 years ago. Throughout all those years and phases of life, Lisa has only made small tweaks to this room. 

A trick she picked up during her 23 years as a designer is keeping a ‘dream file’ on her phone for when she sees something she likes along the way. When it’s time to update things, like light fixtures, there are no big decisions to be made. 

Another piece of advice Lisa shares with her clients: Only buy things you absolutely love. She references a pair of her own chairs. “I bought these long ago. I’ve recovered them, and they’ve been in three different locations in this house,” says Lisa. “I would never get rid of these chairs, I’m just as obsessed with them today as I was when I bought them.”

She is equally obsessed with her newly renovated bathroom, which she completed last year. She spent nine years sketching similar ideas for clients and dreaming up her ultimate design. Finally, she was able to try it out in her home. Porcelain sheets that look like marble cover the walls. “Everyone at Triton [Stone Group] was cheering me on, saying, ‘You’re finally getting your dream bathroom,’” says Lisa, smiling.

As for a favorite room in the house? “The bedroom for sure,” says Lisa. “I live in my bedroom, I do my work back here, sometimes I even eat my meals back here and watch my shows,” she admits laughing. 

Lisa and her husband, Jared, designed the house when their daughters Caldwell and Mary Tynes were 18 months and four. They never thought they would be living here on Dexter as empty nesters, but the space still works for the couple. Off the kitchen, they turned what used to be the children’s playroom into a “movie room for two.” And “it just became our room,” says Lisa.

She points to small changes that can make a big impact on a home, like her love of bold colors. Her advice on that? Be sure you actually like it, and that you’re not reacting to a trend. Lisa suggests incorporating touches of color in a small area of a room and seeing how it feels. 

Of course, that look is not for everyone. Lisa’s favorite client project to date is a house filled with soft grays, blues, and greens. “I don’t want my clients to ever feel as though they live in a house that isn’t their own. I want it to be their house,” she says. “I’d like people to know I’ve been there, but it doesn’t look like Lisa Flake’s house.”